Gershtein Emma Grigoryevna (1903-2002)

Gershtein (Herstein) Emma Grigoryevna (12 [25] October 1903, Dvinsk, Vitebsk Governorate – 2002, Moscow) — memoirist, writer, and literary scholar.

Emma Gershtein came from a physician’s family; until 1929, her father served as chief doctor at the Semashko Hospital in Moscow. She attended the Dvinsk Gymnasium and, in 1924, graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Moscow University.

In the late 1920s, Emma Gershtein became acquainted with Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam. For a long time, she earned a living through occasional work in newspaper and magazine editorial offices and at the Literary Museum. In the late 1930s, with the support of B.M. Eikhenbaum, she began scholarly work in literary studies, particularly focusing on Mikhail Lermontov. In 1938, she gave a lecture at the Pushkin House, which marked the beginning of the publication of her literary research.

From the mid-1940s, she worked in the editorial office of the journal Literary Heritage. She was the author of several books dedicated to the life and work of M.Y. Lermontov. Gershtein was acquainted and maintained close friendships with many prominent figures of 20th-century Russian literature and culture, including Anna Akhmatova and Lev Gumilyov.

Her Memoirs, published in 1998, received significant attention and were awarded the Russian Booker Prize in 1999.

Selected works:

Судьба Лермонтова (The Fate of Lermontov), Moscow, 1964

Герой нашего времени М.Ю.Лермонтова) A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov), Moscow, 1976

Память писателя (A Writer’s Memory), St. Petersburg, 2001